Aleppo vies with Syria’s capital Damascus for the record of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city. The city’s name was first mentioned in texts as far back as the third millennium BC and has had a long and extremely rich history under Hittite, Egyptian, Mitannian, Assyrian, Hellenic, Roman and Ottoman rule. The legacies that these empires left behind have provided Aleppo with numerous attractions, most famously the 12th-century which served first as a Greek acropolis and later as an Islamic fortress. Another draw for visitors is the 12 kilometres (8 miles) of covered bazaars, or souks, where visitors and locals come to haggle for goods; it is also possible to see craftsmen at work. The Great Mosque, or Ommayad Mosque, was built in AD 715 and is one of the best examples of Islamic architecture in Syria. Other attractions in Aleppo include the Ottoman caravanserais, or inns, where travelling merchants and pilgrims used to stay, the Archaeological Museum and the many 17th-century merchants’ houses, a reminder of the city’s importance, both past and present, as a commercial centre.